Monday, March 5, 2012

Veritas: Dave and Breanna

{real life love}
Every bride daydreams about walking up the aisle towards her husband. Meeting his eyes for the first time, feeling beautiful, and knowing something sacred is about to happen brings such a sense of joy and anticipation. What if your husband was walking towards you, and you didn't even know it yet?

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From first date to first engagement picture to first moments as husband and wife!

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Hey, it can really happen. As Breanna E. prepared to transfer colleges, she was seeking a job in the Admissions office when she stumbled onto the Facebook page of a guy who already worked there. She asked him a few questions about it, and though it took him a while to respond, soon they were talking online every night. This guy, if you haven't figured it out yet, was Dave. He told Breanna he wanted to meet her in person on her move-in day, and she says, "I remember sitting outside of my building nervously waiting for him, and I can still picture him walking towards me with a big smile on his face. I never thought that my future husband was walking towards me!" Although neither of them were initially looking for a relationship, they hung out often at the beginning of the year, and Dave asked Breanna to their school's homecoming dance. After the dance, Breanna wanted to protect her heart. She put up an impressive resistance against the many sweet notes and even the dozen roses that Dave sent her- for a while, at least. "Even though I was stubborn," she says, "God had bigger plans for us," and they officially started dating that Fall.

During college, Dave and Breanna grew certain that their relationship would lead to marriage. Breanna's faith was already very important to her and she knew she wanted it to be a large part of their future. As they began attending Mass together and got involved in liturgical ministries, Dave's relationship with the Lord deepened for the first time. After graduation, when they were living an hour apart, the two of them still went to Mass together every Sunday.

Fast forward a few years. Atop a lighthouse in the Outer Banks, Dave proposed! The biggest struggle during their engagement, according to Breanna, was being apart. "Even though we were only separated by one hour, we just wanted to be together and begin that next phase of our lives," she says. Dave also lost his job just three months before their wedding, which put significant pressure on them, but in spite of all this, their engagement continued to stretch and reward their trust in God. In their minds, for instance, "Natural Family Planning is only for people who want to have a dozen or more kids, right? However, as we grew and attended a marriage preparation workshop, we decided that we wanted to explore this option and learned so much about ourselves in the process. After our NFP courses we knew this was the best choice for us, and we're very grateful we let God open our hearts to it."

By the time their wedding day rolled around on June 11, 2011, it was, again, all about trust. Breanna told me about the day so incredibly beautifully that I can't say it as well as her. Here's her account!

I woke up that morning with a sense of peace, and I know that God was with me through the entire day. I hope that every bride feels the same way...I'd obsessed over little details which I promise no one noticed when all was said and done...At the end of the day, the only thing that mattered was that we were united in the sacrament of Marriage. Also, I felt extremely blessed because during our reception a rainbow appeared over the valley. I lost my best friend to cancer in 2008 and I knew it was her saying that she was with me during every moment of the day, and that all would be well in our married life. So far the biggest surprise is that after nearly 7 years together, we're still learning little things about each other every day. We know that this is a journey, and we're blessed to be on it together. We've also learned (again) that God has plans for us that we never could have imagined, and it has been both difficult and rewarding to give everything up to Him. My gift to Dave for our wedding was a Rosary, and we have prayed it together and found that the power of prayer does bring us closer together. Before we were married, our prayer was "private," but now we are trying to pray together, which has helped us to grow even more in our relationship with God.

A wedding is always miraculous, but there's something extra sweet about ones like this that've been so many years in the making, isn't there? Oh, and you're not going to believe this. As if the rainbow wasn't enough, Breanna and Dave got to have their wedding reception at the same venue where they went on their first date to Homecoming! Oh amazing love.